After I finished reading Wylding Hall, I immediately picked up Available Dark for a re-read. Also by Elizabeth Hand, this novel works well as a companion piece – the very English tradition of folk music-meets-countryside-eerie swapped for Nordic folklore noir, with an ear-splitting, black metal soundtrack. 906 more words

I did a little fiction this week, leaving behind the heavy political tomes (although really, Fire and Fury wasn’t exactly a heavy read) and picked up a fun little mystery/maybe supernatural book called Wylding Hall. 817 more words

I’ve been a fan of Elizabeth Hand’s fiction for a long time. Waking the Moon, which seems to be a lot of people’s Elizabeth Hand gateway drug (at least, among readers around my age), came out when I was in college. 577 more words

Read this slim book in one sitting and you’ll get a perfect overview of the career of Elizabeth Hand. There’s the witty, subversive fiction. There’s an autobiographical piece – “Beyond Belief: On Becoming a Writer.” There are two biographical portraits of fine writers who are in danger of slipping out of public consciousness. 348 more words

It is big and it is worth praising …Winterlong is a dense, graceful, bullying book of great length and much skill; it is a live tale, told in a live voice, by an author of muscle and drive and ambition; it shows the depth of talent available in science fiction.

It’s been a little bit too long since I finished Sunshine to really remember enough (sometimes I have the memory of a metaphorical goldfish, which helps when I want to reread things), but I certainly… 328 more words